Valley Stream man found guilty in stepmother's death

A Nassau County jury Wednesday found a Valley Stream man guilty of second-degree murder for bludgeoning his stepmother to death during a heated argument and dumping her body in a trash bin.

William Tracey, 27, who also was convicted of evidence tampering, faces a sentence of 25 years to life in prison. He is scheduled to be sentenced Aug. 5 by County Court Judge Meryl Berkowitz.

Tracey's lawyer, Joseph Lo Piccolo of Garden City, called the evidence in the case "circumstantial" and "troubling," and said he would appeal the conviction.

"I believe the police investigation was lacking in this case," Lo Piccolo said. "The police focused on my client and his two brothers to the exclusion of all others without sufficient justification or reason. In my mind, at the end we're still left with more questions than answers."

Messages left Wednesday with Tracey family members were not returned.

Prosecutors said that around 3 a.m. on March 28, 2009, William Tracey was in his basement room inside the Dartmouth Street home he shared with his stepmother, father and two brothers. He got into an argument with his stepmother, Denise Tracey, and struck her over the head repeatedly with a blunt object, killing her, according to the Nassau County district attorney's office.

He tied up her body with bungee cords, bandannas, towels and garbage bags, and used his car to take the body to a nearby deli's trash bin on Dubois Avenue, where it was found the next day, the district attorney's office said.

Police arrested William Tracey in April 2009 after reviewing surveillance video that showed his car driving toward the deli and back in the other direction around the time of the slaying. Denise Tracey's blood also was found on boxes outside his room, prosecutors said.

William Tracey, who worked installing awnings for a Lawrence company, had said he was going to the Dubois Avenue deli for a drug deal, according to published reports.

"This was a horrifically violent attack on an innocent woman and, thanks to the excellent work done by Nassau County police and my office, this defendant now faces a lengthy prison sentence," District Attorney Kathleen Rice said in a statement.